A reply to contemporary skepticism about intuitions and a priori knowledge, and a defense of neo-rationalism from a contemporary Kantian standpoint, focusing on the theory of rational intuitions and on solving the two core problems of justifying and explaining them.

Globalization, a process characterized by the growing interdependence of the world's people, impacts health systems and the social determinants of health in ways that are detrimental to health equity. In a world in which there are few countervailing normative and policy approaches to the dominant neoliberal regime underpinning globalization, the human rights paradigm constitutes a widely shared foundation for challenging globalization's effects. The substantive rights enumerated in human rights instruments include the right to the highest attainable level of physical and (...) mental health and others that are relevant to the determinants of health. The rights stipulated in these documents impose extensive legal obligations on states that have ratified these documents and confer health entitlements on their residents. Human rights norms have also inspired civil society efforts to improve access to essential medicines and medical services, particularly for HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, many factors reduce the potential counterweight human rights might exert, including and specifically the nature of the human rights approach, weak political commitments to promoting and protecting health rights on the part of some states and their lack of institutional and economic resources to do so. Global economic markets and the relative power of global economic institutions are also shrinking national policy space. This article reviews the potential contributions and limitations of human rights to achieving greater equity in shaping the social determinants of health. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 22-23.

Volume 19, Issue 5, May 2019, Page 68-69.

Precision measurements have been made of the scales on a group of European astrolabes manufactured between c. 1450 and 1659. Little is known from documentary sources of the construction and scale-dividing methods used by late-medieval craftsmen. The measurements of the present group of twenty-four scales have been analysed statistically, so that the parameters of accuracy expected of them can be deduced. Scribing marks and other features give clear indications of how the scales were constructed.

With vast new scientific and technological powers, we face unprecedented choices for which traditional ethics provide little direct guidance. What role can the religious community play in addressing the ethical and theological issues that even science now acknowledges as urgent?Chapman's work forges a method for integrating ethical reasoning with scientific data, focusing on four issues -- cloning, genetic engineering, patenting of life, and environmental alteration. For each, she reviews the work of religious thinkers, assesses the roles of the religious community, (...) considers relevant confessional differences, determines how traditional theological and ethical concepts can be clarified, reformulated, and "operationalized" to meet the questions, and finally she formulates helpful methodological options. She calls for a scientifically informed religious ethics built dialogically from concepts in both science and theology. (shrink)

Contributing to renewed scholarly interest in R. D. Laing and his circle, and in the radical therapeutic community of Kingsley Hall, London, this article offers the first article-length reading of Mary Barnes’ and Joseph Berke’s Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey through Madness. This text offers views of anti-psychiatry ‘on the ground’ that critique the 1960s utopianism of Laing’s championing of madness as a metanoic, quasi-psychedelic voyage. Barnes’ story, too, reveals tensions within the anti-psychiatric movement. Moving beyond existing criticism (...) of the text, Barnes, it is argued here, emerges as far more than an exemplary patient, victim or anti-psychiatric puppet. Particular attention is paid in this reading of Two Accounts to the following: the ways in which the spiritually inclined Barnes and the psychoanalytic Berke differ in this dual narrative text; the ways in which each differs from Laing; the metaphor of the journey; and the setting of Barnes’ story in the often conflicted, experimental household of Kingsley Hall. (shrink)

Local food systems seem virtuous in the larger context of the neoliberalization of global food systems and increasing food insecurity. However, local food systems are critiqued for reproducing neoliberalism when they prioritize niche-market consumerism over enhancing access for poor people. Advocates, in contrast, insist local food systems contribute to an equitable political economy of food if they are place-based and inclusive. Local food systems must not, according to them, be condemned monolithically in light of their neoliberal tendencies, but evaluated instead (...) on a case-by-case basis regarding their potentially innovative solutions to food insecurity. We heed this call by investigating how a regionally-renowned local food system addresses food insecurity in an impoverished corner of rural Appalachia. Specifically, we use qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, to evaluate the local food system in Athens County, Ohio. Our findings indicate that extra-local processes under neoliberalism, including austerity and economic marginalization, create a large-scale context of malign neglect in which local food security initiatives operate. Place-based strategies for food security, in response, emphasize producer profitability and consumer responsibility as solutions to extra-local constraints. These localized processes of benign neglect, however, reproduce stifling neoliberalisms within the Athens local food system, giving it a defensive stance that fails to promote innovative modes of inclusion despite its sustainable reputation. Malign and benign forms of neglect, working in creative tension, perpetuate a problematic paradox of food insecurity amidst a seemingly robust local food system as neoliberalization operating at a variety of scales remains unchallenged. (shrink)

Keisha Ray and Jane Falls Cooper’s article “Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments” seeks to give environmental concerns greater p...

This paper addresses the question of 'What is technology?' in order to develop a framework for the assessment and regulation of technology. I suggest that technology is how we build our world, drawing on the distinctions between the world and the earth, and between the human activities of labour, work and action, made by Hannah Arendt. Arendt's thought has a number of implications for how we should think about and assess the world, and thus technology: the world should not be (...) judged instrumentally, but in terms of whether it provides a place for human action. A model of a possible framework for technology assessment is provided by the UK planning system. (shrink)

Just as human embryonic stem cell research has generated controversy about the uses of human embryos for research and therapeutic applications, human embryonic stem cell patents raise fundamental ethical issues. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted foundational patents, including a composition of matter (or product) patent to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s intellectual property office. In contrast, the European Patent Office rejected the same WARF patent application for ethical reasons. This article assesses (...) the appropriateness of these patents placing the discussion in the context of the deontological and consequentialist ethical issues related to human embryonic stem cell patenting. It advocates for a patent system that explicitly takes ethical factors into account and explores options for new types of intellectual property arrangements consistent with ethical concerns. (shrink)

(1984). Tycho brahe in china: the Jesuit mission to Peking and the iconography of European instrument-making processes. Annals of Science: Vol. 41, No. 5, pp. 417-443.

The misuse of alcohol inflicts a major toll on individual users, their families, and the wider society. This includes disruptions of family life, violence, absenteeism and problems in the workplace, child neglect and abuse, and excess morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization estimates that alcohol ranks eighth among global risk factors for death and is the third leading global risk factor for disease and disability. In the United States, alcohol dependence affects four to five percent of the population at (...) any given time. Alcohol dependence also exacts a significant financial toll.... (shrink)

The transition of novel and potentially promising medical therapies into their initial human clinical trials can engender conflicting pressures. On the one side, because Phase I trials raise greater ethical and human protection challenges than later stage clinical trials, there is a need to proceed cautiously. This is particularly the case for Phase I trials with a novel therapy being tested in humans for the first time, usually termed first-in-human (FIH) trials, especially if the FIH trial involves significant risks. On (...) the other side, scientists interested in having their research validated, corporations with a financial interest in the field, and potential patients and patient support groups desirous of having .. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 5, Page 35-36, May 2012.

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 49-50.

This paper explores one of the major issues before transitional societies, the balance among truth, justice, and/or reconciliation. It focusses on the role of truth commissions, with an emphasis on the experience of South Africa. A central thesis of the paper is that establishing a shared truth that documents the causes, nature, and extent of severe and gross human rights abuses and/or collective violence under antecedent regimes is a prerequisite for achieving accountability, meaningful reconciliation, and a foundation for a common (...) future. It develops and applies an approach to reconciliation based on and extending Donald Shriver's concept of "political forgiveness.". (shrink)

This article explores archival accounts of the experimental community, Kingsley Hall, established by R. D. Laing, the radical Scottish psychiatrist. The paper contributes to renewed interest in Kingsley Hall, R. D. Laing's radical psychiatry and UK counterculture. Archival sources enable not only the further exploration of already known figures but also let us hear previously unheard voices. Following a discussion of archival materials, the Hall is analyzed thematically and historically as an inner spaceship; an embattled middle-class countercultural plantation; a site (...) of spiritual renewal and development; a single-building arts colony; and a countercultural experiment. Finally, it is argued that with re-evaluation of 1960s and 1970s counterculture now underway on the Left, the Hall’s experiment in Laingian countercultural psychiatry—as we may fittingly call it—may yet inform future radical projects. (shrink)

THERE IS WIDESPREAD DISSATISFACTION WITH THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM in this country. This essay outlines why. It then reviews and evaluates the contributions of the faith community to the discussions of health care reform to assess whether the perspective and contributions of religious actors are distinct from secular approaches. Finally, it proposes different emphases for the religious community's future involvement with health care reform.

Mary Somerville (1780-1872), after whom Somerville College Oxford was named, was the first woman scientist to win an international reputation entirely in her own right, rather than through association with a scientific brother or father. She was active in astronomy, one of the most demanding areas of science of the day, and flourished in the unique British tradition of Grand Amateurs, who paid their own way and were not affiliated with any academic institution. Mary Somerville was to science what Jane (...) Austen was to literature and Frances Trollope to travel writing. Allan Chapman's vivid account brings to light the story of an exceptional woman, whose achievements in a field dominated by men deserve to be very widely known. (shrink)

(1995). Out of the meridian: John Bird's equatorial sector and the new technology of astronomical measurement. Annals of Science: Vol. 52, No. 5, pp. 431-463.

Focus of this article is Bernard's definitions and ideas surrounding power (potestas). The first section will outline terminology drawing a distinction between Bernard 's use of the terms potestas and auctoritas. Auctoritas is used less frequently by Bernard and is limited to descriptions of eccíesiastical matters; it is not predicated to the functions of a secular ruler whether king or emperor Conversely, potestas has a wide variety of uses and applications including descriptions of the power of God, the secular power (...) and the ecclesiastical power which is defined as potestas ligandi et solvendi. Given its range of meanings and uses, potestas is not a technical term for Bernard. Rather potestas is a biblical term of which the frequency and prevalence in the text of the Vulgate certainly influenced Bernard. Since Bernard uses potestas in both ecclesiastical and secular descriptions, other terms are helpful in drawing distinctions between the two spheres, e.g. ministerium and dominium, which as contrasting terms provide a point of entry into this discussion. (shrink)

Se sabe relativamente poco acerca de las ideas de los maestros en formación sobre la naturaleza y el propósito de la enseñanza de la historia. Este artículo revisa la investigación sobre este tema y presenta un análisis de cómo el currículum nacional inglés ha conceptualizado los objetivos de la enseñanza de la historia desde el año 1991. Los datos derivados de una discusión en línea permiten explorar el pensamiento de 40 docentes de historia en prácticas y analizarlos cualitativamente para conocer (...) la variedad de ideas presentes en esta muestra. Los estudiantes tuvieron una amplia gama de puntos de vista sobre los objetivos y propósitos de la enseñanza de la historia y se identificaron las divergencias y convergencias entre el pensamiento de los estudiantes y el pensamiento de los políticos ingleses y de los líderes de opinión. Se concluye que quienes desarrollan los currículos deben prestar mucha más atención que en el pasado al pensamiento de los actuales y futuros profesores de historia, que son en último término los responsables del diseño de las propuestas curriculares. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 3, Page 235-242, March 2022.

Rapid breakthroughs in genetic research spurred by the Human Genome Project, advances in molecular biology, and new reproductive technologies are raising the prospect that we may eventually have the technical capacity to modify genes that are transmitted to future generations not only to treat or eliminate diseases but also to "enhance" normal human characteristics beyond what is necessary to sustain or restore good health. This paper explores the ethical and justice implications of such genetic modifications. It argues against developing these (...) technologies primarily because it will not be possible to counter the deleterious justice impacts. It recommends the need for public education and public discussion, preferably with the religious community taking an active role, to shape decisions about future genetic research and applications, and for better regulation of genetic technologies with the potential for inheritable genetic alterations. (shrink)

The graduated arcs of some seventeenth and early eighteenth- century observatory instruments have been examined in order to estimate the accuracy of the angular divisions. In addition, the design of the frameworks supporting the graduated arcs has been studied from existing instruments and from contemporary engravings. The analysis attempts to assess the skills of the craftsman rather than the perspicacity of the astronomer.